“The sun could be a net for dark matter, a new study suggests. If dark matter happens to take a certain specific form, it could build up in our nearest star and alter how heat moves inside it in a way that would be observable from Earth.
Dark matter is the mysterious stuff that makes up about 83 percent of the matter in the universe, but doesn’t interact with electromagnetic forces. Although the universe contains five times as much dark matter as normal matter, dark matter is completely invisible both to human eyes and every kind of telescope ever devised. Physicists only know it’s there because of its gravitational effect on normal matter. Dark matter keeps galaxies spinning quickly without flying apart and is responsible for much of the large-scale structure in the universe.
Current dark matter detectors are looking for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, that connect only with the weak nuclear force and gravity. Based on the most widely accepted theories, most experiments are tuned to look for a particle that is about 100 times more massive than a proton. The chief suspect is also its own antiparticle: Whenever a WIMP meets another WIMP, they annihilate each other.
“This is something that has always worried me,” said astroparticle physicist Subir Sarkar of the University of Oxford. If equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created in the big bang, the particles should have completely wiped each other out by now. “Obviously that did not happen, we are here to prove it,” he said. “So something created an asymmetry of matter over antimatter,” letting a little bit of matter survive after all the antimatter was gone.”
Read more at Wired
cool
we’d better notify the sun’s mom that it needs a bath…
That’s odd, u’d expect most wimps would run away from a fight
So does it matter or doesn’t it matter?
I’ve studied particle physics and quantum mechanics at a layman level for quite a while, it fascinates me. But after educating myself in this area I realized it’s far from that developed and solid as commonly presented, after I saw all the dirty tricks of renormalization and such it seemed more and more like a patchwork where math is molded into mimicking reality rather than reveal/describe fundamental principles of nature.
The Dark Matter is prime example of this. Our equations do not match the reality so there must be something mystical that we can’t see, can’t detect and it doesn’t interact with anything except for gravity … as opposed to the equations being wrong, go figure. Instead of saying that our understanding may not be complete or flawed they make up this mythical creature named Dark Matter which could just as equally be named The Fudge Factor as that’s exactly what it is.
This is no different from when our ancestors saw some natural phenomenon like lightning and couldn’t explain how it’s happening so they made up a creature that made that lightning happen like Zeus or something. Now they can not explain why equations do not match so they made up Dark Matter … giving it a fancy name doesn’t make it any more real.
This is exactly what they did when atomic nucleus was found. They could not explain how positively charged particles could stick together so they made up The Strong Force (there is a pattern of very creative name giving as you can see) which then “explained” why they stick together … except they have it backwards, you can not observe an unexplained phenomenon then make up some creation of yours which has exactly the properties you’re missing (just like it was done with Dark Matter) and then claim that this hypothetical creation “explains” the phenomenon you’ve observed in a first place. There isn’t any inherent reason for Strong Force to exist except to patch up a hole in a theory … well, and then they discovered Quarks … and could not explain how those stick together, so they, guess what, yup made up another force as a result of Color Charge and proclaimed that the Strong Force is a residual force from this even stronger force, infinitely strong to be precise because quarks can not be broken apart … eh? This is not science, this is scientists playing whack-a-mole every time a flaw in theory manifests itself … inevitably so if it’s fundamentally flawed.
Don’t be fooled by the sophisticated language and complex looking math. It’s not that difficult to understand the principles behind advanced physics … they make it look difficult to scare you away from trying to understand and examining it yourself and just accept their authority and conclusions on faith instead. Just as priests and prophets claimed to have some “special connection” in history to assert authority, the prophets of our times would have you believe the same even those calling themselves “scientists” … don’t buy it, you’re perfectly capable of understanding this stuff.
@Ghawkes. Best. Post. Ever.
“Whenever a WIMP meets another WIMP, they annihilate each other.”
how? slap fight? Pokemon battle? WoW tournament?